Life in Cambodia

Vietnam Get Away...

Some things about Vietnam that struck me as interesting:
-Despite the 100+F temperature, women wear jackets, long pants and socks with their cute kitten-heeled sandals, and the best part: full length, past the elbow evening-type gloves. Really. Plus cute gardening hats, sunglasses and full on burqua-esque face covers (although for quite different reasons)—ladies, this is what we call serious protection from the sun, smog, exhaust, fumes and overall dirtiness of the city. I was in a shoe shop in HCMC on the main shopping drag and YES!—They had my size in a nice slip-on flat sandal in black. Perfect. Plus they were only $15, a steal for leather sandals. Anyway, I realize that my ragged-y a**, dirty, sweaty American sized clodhopper feet (compared to the Vietnamese ladies…) go to try on these cute little shoes, next to an oh-so-stylish, petite, non-sweaty and perfectly clean-footed Vietnamese woman who just pulled up on a moto in the same 100+F weather I did, (no doubt after whizzing through the same smog and mad traffic, just as I had done) and she’s all pulled together—and those feet! Nice. After slipping my sandals off and gasping at my feet, the kind shoe-sales woman helped me buckle the shoes, but I quickly felt REALLY BAD and decided I needed to give this woman a break and head back to the guesthouse to wash my feet before shopping any longer. But this woman next to me in the shoe shop wasn’t the only one looking perfect. No, almost all the women do. The visions of completely covered women on motos struck me. That’s it girls, they just completely cover themselves, literally from head to toe when they leave the house. Once reaching their destination, they don’t remove the first layer until safely inside or in a garden or restaurant somewhere protected from the elements...hmmm, not so easy, I think. Anyway, it’s a funny sight, I wasn’t sure what to think at first with the long gloves and all, but hey, it works. You just might see me with some socks and my cute little sandals on sometime soon. But there was more to take in in Vietnam than how-to keep-clean-in-the-heat.

No problems from the border to HCMC, but once in this bustling town, the driver of the 25 or so person bus I was in became a bit distracted or something and ended up hitting the taxi in front of us, who then of course hit the taxi in front of him. I’m surprised we actually hit another car/bus/large vehicle, as the streets are almost entirely filled/overflowing/over-run by motos and bikes. Anyway, no one was hurt, but the taxi drivers who were hit were really pissed off and lots of yelling, screaming, pointing and running around ensued. I decided not to wait around for another bus or more of a scene (as they were trying to keep us all on the broken down one while another arrived, yeah right)—it was 5:30pm, universal time for rush hour and I would have been there for hours. I hoped off and found another taxi to take me to my guesthouse.

I arrived and relaxed on the top floor room, across from the rooftop terrace with a lovely breeze (!) and overflowing flower pots—it was a nice $10/night with A/C and hot water. Cute place, the woman had lived in France for sometime and was very accommodating, loaning me Vietnamese Dong to pay for the taxi, chatting me up etc. I quickly left the hotel though in search for some snacks and found some good Pho (beef noodle soup with your choice to add whatever you like—sugar, MSG, salt, soy sauce, hot peppers, lime, fresh basil leaves, bamboo shoots) and of course, really good Vietnamese iced coffee (I love this stuff! The French passed this nice thing along…).

Friday morning I hit the street early to walk around the neighborhoods a bit and then went to a few pagodas. Both were Chinese influenced and the first one was a Taoist pagoda—lots of turtles in the pond as well. Beautiful, quite old (was first built in 1780s) and peaceful. This was a good way to start the day. The second spanned across about 5-6 blocks and I did happen upon the monks just as they were sitting down to eat; I milled around a bit until they finished, and lucky to be around to hear them chanting after their meal and watched them as they filed out of one of the buildings. At the same time, a man sitting in one of the courtyards began playing a traditional wood-carved flute. It was a mental reprieve from the heat and thoughts of work.

My afternoon consisted of typical sports fare in HCMC for all good barang (foreigners): shopping, eating more in the market, exploring the food section and trying to figure out what was in the bins, barrels, sliced open on the tables, and being lead away from the stench. Someone had cracked open a durian. Ugh. Bad smell, bad taste (in my opinion at least). With my arms weighted down, I figured why stop now? I headed to the supermarket! I really needed some milk (yup, the nice stuff you don’t have to refrigerate…), cereal, nutella (!) and other goods that I can’t buy in Svay Rieng…The last part of my day consisted of weaving in and out of the mad hoard of tourists (yes, me among them) through the “Russian Market” section of town—lots of little stalls, somewhat reminiscent of Chinatown NY where you can buy the BEST (or worst…depending) rip-off North Face, Alpine Lowe, LL Bean etc. backpacks, duffel bags and all the Fendi/Gucci/Prada rip-offs you could ever hope for; most under $7-8, cheap! Bangkok, Phnom Penh and other SE Asian cities have the same, so this was no surprise, but the quality seemed superior here in Uncle Ho land…the handmade paper and stationary shops also happen to be in this area and I was loving that.

I ended up ducking in and out of my neighborhood (backpacker haven, yes indeed) for the rest of the night, window/stall shopping and well, yes, broke down and ordered a cheese burger and fries. I was noodle-d and rice-d out…that’s it here in Svay Rieng, so ‘eh, I splurged $2 and I was full.

My morning was rushed to try to get out of town as I was really lucky to use one of the webcam-stocked internet cafes to reach my dear friends and loved ones: Matt, Mary, Laura, Pat, Betsy and Chris, having quite a Friday night at Silver Spring Towers, apartment 601 dart championship (and unofficial, drink till you pass out party). It was great to see everyone, although with somewhat of a lag, but I think that represented well their state of mind by the time I called them. I can’t wait to get back on the ‘cam (let me know if you have access!)…after an hour of laughing, IM-ing and making faces into the ‘cam, I said good-bye and picked up my nice traditional Vietnamese long silk top with pants—tres chic…but the rest of my day wasn’t so chic…I ended up sitting at the bus station for an hour or so trying not to gag on the fumes in the mid-day heat. Getting to the border then wasn’t the tough part, crossing back into Cambodia became an issue, as the Phnom Penh office assured me their paperwork would do the trick. Well, not quite and after trying to communicate with the border police (calling in a Khmer NGO friend who gives HIV/AIDS workshops to the border police was also a worthy try but yielded no results…) I just gave up and took another month-long business visa. We’ll see what happens when I go to PP and enter the annals of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to try to resolve it…

Finally made it home after swerving in and out of teenagers running on the street and others 5 (!) to a moto, throwing baby powder and water on each other to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Somewhat eventful trip, but I returned home and had electricity for the whole night! Perfect…

Other favorite things in Vietnam:
-Construction helmets/hard hats are just as useful as motorcycle helmets;
-Being labeled ‘big-girl size’ (repeated to me about 4 times over the course of 2 hours of shopping—apparently anyone above a size 8…);
-Every internet café in HCMC has webcams!
-There is a lot of green space that people actually use here—fierce games of badminton (really) and the -Vietnamese version of hacky-sack played by all ages;
-Rooftop patios (although these are a must in Phnom Penh as well);
-Did I mention the really good iced coffee????;
-Hour long massages by the blind masseuses at the Traditional Vietnamese Medicine Hospital;
-Pho (soup, see above) and Bun (noodles, room temp, little spring rolls cut up, chicken/pork/beef, vinegar and fish sauce, lettuce, fresh basil, bamboo shoots, carrots, hot pepper, tamarind sauce and hot sauce if you like, all mixed up together);
-Really good coffee, teas and all types of teapots and cups you could ever hope for;
-Propaganda posters all over the place in the typical pop-art-esque style…
**pictures coming soon**

posted by Life in Cambodia @ 12:42 PM